American Crescent by Imam Hassan Qazwini
A Review by Dale Brown
The subtitle of the book “A
Muslim cleric on the Power of His Faith, the Struggle Against Prejudice and the
Future of Islam and America” lays the ground work for its introduction.Without question the journey of Imam Qazwini who has become one of the most influential Muslims in America, is a fascinating one. His life begins in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was systematically eliminating any opposition to his authority and the Qazwini family came under suspicion. When Hassan was six years old his father loaded up the family early one morning in 1971 and fled to Kuwait where he was exposed to a more western environment. The family heritage comes from a long line of Shiite scholars from the town of Karbala. They claim their lineage to the prophet Mohammed himself.
In 1976 they were visited by a family friend visiting from San Francisco who had established the Islamic Society of California. Hassan was encouraged by this man to consider becoming an imam. Two years later he attended a lecture by another visitor from America where he learned that Islam in the states was like an infant in need of nurturing. This visitor Imam Chirri (Shur'-ee) was the founder of the Islamic Center of Detroit and had connections with many high political leaders.
In 1979 it became clear that Saddam Hussein's thugs were reaching out far and wide in arresting and eliminating Shia's and anyone else who might be a threat to him. Many friends and relatives of the Qazwini family in Karbala became targets of his terror and those that could fled for their life to Kuwait and some to Iran. About this time Hassan's father decided it was time to move to the town of Qum (Kohm),Iran, a place famous for its large seminary. The Ayatollah Khomeini was the big name at the time and Islamic Revolution was the buzz word. It was here that Hassan broadened his linguistic skills from Arabic to the more local Persian Farsi.
Graduating from a seminary which claimed the most eminent Shia faculty in the world he was also exposed to a different climate, terrain and political scene. The Shah had been forced into exile in 1979 and Saddam went to war against Iran. Iran's Islamic Revolution was causing U.S. officials to get concerned that it might spread to Kuwait or Saudi Arabia where it had oil interests. The U.S. was stuck between a rock and a hard spot trying to figure out who to trust and who to sell weapons too.
While Qazwini buddies up to liberal ecumenical church leaders he is quick to condemn Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham on page 164 as “stuntmen in clerics' garb, not true arbiters of the faith”. In the same breath he lists others such as Jerry Vines, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, for being critical of Islam. Then in 1983 a short time after he was married he made his first hajj to Mecca, and became more aware of the differences between the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi form of Islam and his Shia tradition. A times he uses the history of Shia persecution by Wahhabis as a platform to appease Christian and Jewish complaints regarding their persecution by Muslims. He points out that the Shiites are not allowed to build mosques in Saudi Arabia much like the ban on churches and synagogues suggesting that we have much in common. Blaming the relatively recent Wahhabi movement for persecution of Shiites and non-Muslims is a rather simplistic rewrite of history however. The split between Sunnis and Shiites dates back to shortly after the death of Mohammed and he admits how those related to the prophet were pressured out of power and eventually Imam Ali was murdered. The power struggle between these two factions continues to this day.
The book has many photos of Imam Qazwini with George W. Bush, Al Gore, Colin Powell, Nancy Pelosi as well as Congressman John Dingell. Because of his background he has been a sounding board for those seeking advice about not only the Middle East but American Muslims as well. Dingell invited him to give the opening prayer for the 108th Congress in 1997. This is the same Dingel who voted against solidarity with Israel in 2001.e condemned Christian evangelism during war,
because the people are desperate and easy targets. I guess the history of conversion to Islam at
the point of the sword should have been mentioned as well but that was
conveniently avoided. It might be worth
pointing out that the Ayatollah Khomeini was a Shiite who taught at Qum and
called America the Great Satan. And it
was he that issued a fatwa in 1989 to kill Salman Rushie for his book that was
offensive to Islam.By 2006 Qazwini had spoken to
more than 230 churches, colleges and civic groups. He often quotes the Hadith to make his points
and is mystified by the fact that Americans still have a negative view of
Islam. Maybe it is because Americans are
becoming more familiar with the Quran and it is more difficult to blow smoke up
our pants leg. Then, aside from the
book, in an interfaith dialogue with some Lutherans he claims that hunting for
sport is un-Islamic and eating fish without scales will upset the equilibrium
of the ocean. This kind of nonsense is
laughable to the thousands of hunters and fishermen in our country most of
which are excellent stewards of God's creation and our government goes to great
lengths to monitor the harvest of wildlife.
Those that own guns might take his message to mean we should all give up
our guns as well. Good luck with that.
The Imam cites the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) often as a reference,which is not likely to help
him much given their dubious record.
Toward the end of the book under “Muslim Empowerment” he lists a
recommended strategy for advancement of Islam in the west which includes
establishing more media connections and working to get more positions in
government. He suggests that Muslims
should work to make America a pro-Muslim country as the Jews have done with
their religion. He fails to see that
Jews and Christians share the same Old Testament scripture and are pro-Israel,
unlike our Muslim friends. The Bible
tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem while the Quran does not even
mention Jerusalem.
If the events in Dearborn over
the past few years with Muslims harassing Christian evangelists such as David
Woods and Terry Jones are any indication of the future, we might pay close
attention to these not so friendly Shiites as well as other Muslims. The only thing that seemed to get their
attention was taking the Sharia friendly officials to court.Jesus said “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” (Matt. 7:15)
http://youtu.be/KI0mZ-TsltU
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